Welcome to The Hero 🗞️. This is approximately a 3-minute read.

Every hiring choice leans on one thing more than anything else:

The resume.

We read it like it tells us who a person really is…

But it doesn't.

It tells us who they used to be.

It's a snapshot from the past - taken at a company that has changed, in a job that has changed, using skills that may already be out of date.

And think about what a resume really is.

It's a marketing doc someone wrote about themselves.

It won't tell you if they were actually any good. And it definitely won't tell you if they could do it again somewhere new - which is the only thing you really care about.

The full breakdown is just below - don’t miss it! 😉

Here are some of the best links I’ve found since last time I emailed you: 

1 in 4 Job Applicants Will Be Fake by 2028 (Gartner Prediction) (link)

59% of Managers Suspect AI Misrepresentation in Hiring (link)

Skills-Based Hiring vs. Degree-Based Hiring: What the Data Shows (link)

Skills Taxonomies: How to Build One for Recruiting (link) 

 Quality of Hire: The KPI You Need to Measure in 2026 (link)

10 Recruitment KPIs for Better Quality, Speed, and ROI in 2026 (link)

99% of CEOs Are Planning AI Layoffs in the Next 2 Years (link)

"Skills-based hiring" sounds like boring HR talk.

But it's not. It's a response to a problem that keeps getting bigger.

Here's the whole idea in one sentence:

Hire people for what they can do, not for where they've been.

And it matters more now than ever - because skills are going out of date faster than they used to.

The World Economic Forum says that by 2023, 39% of current skills a job needs will have changed.

Read that again - almost 4 in 10 skills, gone or rewritten, in just five years 👀

So that degree from eight years ago? Or that job title from two jobs back?

They barely tell you anything about what someone can actually do, right now.

That's exactly why a resume works like a rearview mirror. It only shows you what's behind you. But the job is the road ahead.

What really tells you if someone's good is watching them do the work.

Not a line on a page that says "led a data migration."

The person who can show you the skill always beats the person who can only list it.

We trust resumes because they're quick and easy to read.

But easy and true aren't the same thing…

🫳
🎤

Four simple moves. None of them cost you a thing.

For the jobs that really matter, swap part of the screening for a short, real task.

Watching someone work for 30 minutes tells you more than a resume tells you in a whole year.

Here's where most get it wrong:

They ban AI or Google during the test.

Don't. Hand them a real task from the job, and let them use whatever they'd actually use to get it done - just like they could in real life.

Everyone has the same tools now.

So the tools aren't what set people apart anymore - the quality of the work is.

Two people can both use AI.

But only one will know what "good" looks like, catch the mistakes, and turn it into something you'd be proud to send.

You're not testing whether they can use the tools.

You're testing whether they can tell good work from bad.

Try this in the interview:

"Here's a real problem from this job. How would you handle it?"

Anyone can rehearse a story about past work.

Far fewer can solve a fresh problem on the spot.

One shows you how they talk. The other shows you how they think 🧠

When skills go out of date every few years, the ability to learn new ones is the most valuable thing a person has.

The paper goes stale. The learner keeps up.

A resume only shows you the past.

But the job is all about the future.

And the gap between them gets bigger every year.

So stop hiring the best story about what someone used to do.

Start hiring the best proof of what they can do next.

A resume can tell you what someone was hired to do once.

It can't tell you what they'll do next.

There are a few ways:

Or you can just reply to this email.

I reply to absolutely everyone who writes me back 🙂